ChatGPT maker OpenAI just made a big money move. The artificial intelligence super org is ditching its non-profit roots and taking advantage of the deep pockets of venture capitalism.
As of October 2nd, 2024, OpenAI has raised a whopping $6.6 billion. AP News describes this fundraising as “One of the biggest fundraising rounds in U.S. history and ranks as the largest in the past 17 years that doesn’t include money coming from a single deep-pocketed company, according to PitchBook.”
What does the shift mean for marketers?
OpenAI is looking to fully transform from a nonprofit research institute into a for-profit corporation accountable to shareholders. (A for-profit valued at $157 billion, nonetheless.)
According to a press release from OpenAI, “The new funding will allow us to double down on our leadership in frontier AI research, increase compute capacity, and continue building tools that help people solve hard problems.” OpenAI also claims its objective is to “make advanced intelligence a widely accessible resource” and plans to collaborate with everyone from developers to “key partners, including the U.S. and allied governments [to] unlock this technology’s full potential.”
So, what does this mean for marketers using ChatGPT or other AI platforms to help augment marketing plans, gather context or create content outlines? Well, a few things.
Here are our predictions:
1. AI will get even stickier
AI has become a sort of bucket term that can mean anything from generative content creation to autocomplete and everything in between. With so many capabilities attributed to “AI,” not only is it still the hottest buzzword for B2B SaaS solutions, but it’s infiltrated the B2C consumer market.
If you recall, back in June Apple unveiled its plans to integrate its “Apple Intelligence” into just about most of its product lines. We predict that more and more companies will keep jumping on the AI bandwagon if they haven’t already. As OpenAI continues to lead the space, we expect most new products will utilize the ChatGPT owner’s technology in some capacity.
2. The free versions will become more limited
As AI technology improves, specifically in the generative areas, we expect the free version of ChatGPT and other similar tools to become more limited. The basic free version will get more, well, basic, prompting users to sign up for the paid version.
3. We’re gonna have to figure out how to leverage AI voice assistants
Move over SEO, the next frontier of content optimization is for the tools helping the folks using AI plus their voice to search for things. Recent news indicates that developers are already hard at work fast-tracking new AI voice applications using a single set of instructions.
4. We should expect more regulations around AI
As we are well aware, left unchecked, AI could easily take over more than our copywriting. We’re okay if they want to pass some laws to protect everyone.
With many companies putting the kibosh on employee use of AI, it’s only natural that we’ll start seeing more laws at the state and federal levels. Many states, including California, haven’t been quiet regarding regulating how artificial intelligence is developed and deployed, but don’t expect that to last long.
Should marketers be concerned?
For any marketer concerned about the future of their line of work, you do need to keep paying attention.
Our best advice? Try out the tools while they’re free. And, if you are going to use it, review and edit carefully with your own human intelligence. For those concerned about privacy and safety, write an email to your senator asking them to regulate AI.
And when in doubt, phone a friend. Our team is here to help you wade through the AI noise and craft content that resonates the good old-fashioned way. (Unless you want us to leverage your AI tool of choice, we can do that too). Just reach out.